for our reputation always comes injured out of the encounter. Every one may be of importance as an enemy if not as a friend. Few can do us good, almost any can do us harm... Friends provoked become the bitterest of enemies... If, however, a breach is inevitable, let it be rather excused as a slackening of friendship than by an outburst of wrath...
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
A full rupture almost always costs you, whatever the merits, because reputation comes out of any open quarrel injured. The asymmetry is the heart of it: few people are positioned to do you real good, but almost anyone can do you harm, so making an enemy is rarely worth the satisfaction. Provoked friends turn into the bitterest enemies of all, since they know your weak points and cover their own failings with your faults. So the counsel is to avoid the clean break: loosen ties rather than snap them, let a cooling relationship simply cool. And if a break truly cannot be avoided, let it look like a friendship gradually fading rather than anger exploding, because the wrathful rupture makes the permanent enemy that the slow fade does not.
Practice
- Avoid the clean break; loosen ties rather than snap them, because reputation comes injured out of every open quarrel (maxim 217 keeps the door open).
- Weigh the asymmetry before making an enemy; few can do you good, almost anyone can do you harm, so the enemy is rarely worth it.
- If a break is unavoidable, let it look like a friendship cooling, not wrath exploding; the angry rupture makes the permanent enemy.
Use this when
- Use this whenever a relationship is souring; manage it toward a fade, not a blowup.
- Use it especially with those who know your weak points; a provoked friend becomes the most dangerous kind of enemy.
Ignore this when
- Don't confuse avoiding rupture with tolerating real abuse; some relationships must end, and the rule is about how, not whether (the excused breach is still allowed).
- Don't cling to a draining tie forever to avoid any break; loosening is permitted, and the fade is itself a way out.
A picture of it
On the verge of a satisfying blowup with a difficult peer, a manager remembers the asymmetry: the peer can do him little good but, as an enemy, a great deal of harm, and the quarrel would injure his own standing regardless of who was right. He chooses the fade instead, loosening the tie, letting the relationship cool without a scene. Two years on, the peer has moved into a position that could have blocked him, and does not, because there was never a rupture to avenge. The blowup would have felt wonderful for an afternoon and cost him for years.
Every open quarrel injures your name. Loosen ties rather than snap them, and if you must break, let it look like a fade, not a fire.